by Sax Rohmer
“Let us go and interview the swans,” he murmured absently.
CHAPTER VII. AT THE LAVENDER ARMS
In certain moods Paul Harley was impossible as a companion, and I, who knew him well, had learned to leave him to his own devices at such times. These moods invariably corresponded with his meeting some problem to the heart of which the lance of his keen wit failed to penetrate. His humour might not display itself in the spoken word, he merely became oblivious of everything and everybody around him. People might talk to him and he scarce noted their presence, familiar faces appear and he would see them not. Outwardly he remained the observant Harley who could see further into a mystery than any other in England, but his observation was entirely introspective; although he moved amid the hustle of life he was spiritually alone, communing with the solitude which dwells in every man’s heart.
Presently, then, as we came to the lake at the foot of the sloping lawns, where water lilies were growing and quite a number of swans had their habitation, I detected the fact that I had ceased to exist so far as Harley was concerned. Knowing this mood of old, I pursued my way alone, pressing on across the valley and making for a swing gate which seemed to open upon a public footpath. Coming to this gate I turned and looked back.
Paul Harley was standing where I had left him by the edge of the lake, staring as if hypnotized at the slowly moving swans. But I would have been prepared to wager that he saw neither swans nor lake, but mentally was far from the spot, deep in some complex maze of reflection through which no ordinary mind could hope to follow him.
I glanced at my watch and found that it was but little after two o’clock. Luncheon at Cray’s Folly was early. I therefore had some time upon my hands and I determined to employ it in exploring part of the neighbourhood. Accordingly I filled and lighted my pipe and strolled leisurely along the footpath, enjoying the beauty of the afternoon, and admiring the magnificent timber which grew upon the southerly slopes of the valley.
Larks sang high above me and the air was fragrant with those wonderful earthy scents which belong to an English countryside. A herd of very fine Jersey cattle presently claimed inspection, and a little farther on I found myself upon a high road where a brown-faced fellow seated aloft upon a hay-cart cheerily gave me good-day as I passed.
Quite at random I turned to the left and followed the road, so that presently I found myself in a very small village, the principal building of which was a very small inn called the “Lavender Arms.”
Colonel Menendez’s curaçao, combined with the heat of the day, had made me thirsty; for which reason I stepped into the bar-parlour determined to sample the local ale. I wars served by the landlady, a neat, round, red little person, and as she retired, having placed a foam-capped mug upon the counter, her glance rested for a moment upon the only other occupant of the room, a man seated in an armchair immediately to the right of the door. A glass of whisky stood on the window ledge at his elbow, and that it was by no means the first which he had imbibed, his appearance seemed to indicate.
Having tasted the cool contents of my mug, I leaned back against the counter and looked at this person curiously.
He was apparently of about medium height, but of a somewhat fragile appearance. He was dressed like a country gentleman, and a stick and soft hat lay upon the ledge near his glass. But the thing about him which had immediately arrested my attention was his really extraordinary resemblance to Paul Harley’s engraving of Edgar Allan Poe.
I wondered at first if Harley’s frequent references to the eccentric American genius, to whom he accorded a sort of hero-worship, were responsible for my imagining a close resemblance where only a slight one existed. But inspection of that strange, dark face convinced me of the fact that my first impression had been a true one. Perhaps, in my curiosity, I stared rather rudely.
“You will pardon me, sir,” said the stranger, and I was startled to note that he spoke with a faint American accent, “but are you a literary man?”
As I had judged to be the case, he was slightly bemused, but by no means drunk, and although his question was abrupt it was spoken civilly enough.
“Journalism is one of the several occupations in which I have failed,” I replied, lightly.
“You are not a fiction writer?”
“I lack the imagination necessary for that craft, sir.”
The other wagged his head slowly and took a drink of whisky. “Nevertheless,” he said, and raised his finger solemnly, “you were thinking that I resembled Edgar Allan Poe!”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, for the man had really amazed me. “You clearly resemble him in more ways than one. I must really ask you to inform me how you deduced such a fact from a mere glance of mine.”
“I will tell you, sir,” he replied. “But, first, I must replenish my glass, and I should be honoured if you would permit me to replenish yours.”
“Thanks very much,” I said, “but I would rather you excused me.”
“As you wish, sir,” replied the American with grave courtesy, “as you wish.”
He stepped up to the counter and rapped upon it with half a crown, until the landlady appeared. She treated me to a pathetic glance, but refilled the empty glass.
My American acquaintance having returned to his seat and having added a very little water to the whisky went on:
“Now, sir,” said he, “my name is Colin Camber, formerly of Richmond, Virginia, United States of America, but now of the Guest House, Surrey, England, at your service.”
Taking my cue from Mr. Camber’s gloomy but lofty manner, I bowed formally and mentioned my name.
“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Knox,” he assured me; “and now, sir, to answer your question. When you came in a few moments ago you glanced at me. Your eyes did not open widely as is the case when one recognizes, or thinks one recognizes, an acquaintance, they narrowed. This indicated retrospection. For a moment they turned aside. You were focussing a fugitive idea, a memory. You captured it. You looked at me again, and your successive glances read as follows: The hair worn uncommonly long, the mathematical brow, the eyes of a poet, the slight moustache, small mouth, weak chin; the glass at his elbow. The resemblance is complete. Knowing how complete it is myself, sir, I ventured to test my theory, and it proved to be sound.”
Now, as Mr. Colin Camber had thus spoken in the serious manner of a slightly drunken man, I had formed the opinion that I stood in the presence of a very singular character. Here was that seeming mésalliance which not infrequently begets genius: a powerful and original mind allied to a weak will. I wondered what Mr. Colin Camber’s occupation might be, and somewhat, too, I wondered why his name was unfamiliar to me. For that the possessor of that brow and those eyes could fail to make his mark in any profession which he might take up I was unwilling to believe.
“Your exposition has been very interesting, Mr. Camber,” I said. “You are a singularly close observer, I perceive.”
“Yes,” he replied, “I have passed my life in observing the ways of my fellowmen, a study which I have pursued in various parts of the world without appreciable benefit to myself. I refer to financial benefit.”
He contemplated me with a look which had grown suddenly pathetic.
“I would not have you think, sir,” he added, “that I am an habitual toper. I have latterly been much upset by — domestic worries, and — er—” He emptied his glass at a draught. “Surely, Mr. Knox, you are going to replenish? Whilst you are doing so, would you kindly request Mrs. Wootton to extend the same favour to myself?”
But at that moment Mrs. Wootton in person appeared behind the counter. “Time, please, gentlemen,” she said; “it is gone half-past two.”
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Camber, rising. “What is that? You decline to serve me, Mrs. Wootton?”
“Why, not at all, Mr. Camber,” answered the landlady, “but I can serve no one now; it’s after time.”
“You decline to serve me,” he muttered, his speech be
coming slurred. “Am I, then, to be insulted?”
I caught a glance of entreaty from the landlady. “My dear sir,” I said, genially, “we must bow to the law, I suppose. At least we are better off here than in America.”
“Ah, that is true,” agreed Mr. Camber, throwing his head back and speaking the words as though they possessed some deep dramatic significance. “Yes, but such laws are an insult to every intelligent man.”
He sat down again rather heavily, and I stood looking from him to the
landlady, and wondering what I should do. The matter was decided for
me, however, in a way which I could never have foreseen. For, hearing
a light footfall upon the step which led up to the bar-parlour, I
turned — and there almost beside me stood a wrinkled little Chinaman!
He wore a blue suit and a tweed cap, he wore queer, thick-soled
slippers, and his face was like a smiling mask hewn out of very old
ivory. I could scarcely credit the evidence of my senses, since the
Lavender Arms was one of the last places in which I should have looked
for a native of China.
Mr. Colin Camber rose again, and fixing his melancholy eyes upon the newcomer:
“Ah Tsong,” he said in a tone of cold anger, “what are you doing here?”
Quite unmoved the Chinaman replied:
“Blingee you chit, sir, vellee soon go back.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Camber. “Answer me, Ah Tsong: who sent you?”
“Lilly missee,” crooned the Chinaman, smiling up into the other’s face with a sort of childish entreaty. “Lilly missee.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Camber in a changed voice. “Oh.”
He stood very upright for a moment, his gaze set upon the wrinkled Chinese face. Then he looked at Mrs. Wootton and bowed, and looked at me and bowed, very stiffly.
“I must excuse myself, sir,” he announced. “My wife desires my presence at home.”
I returned his bow, and as he walked quite steadily toward the door, followed by Ah Tsong, he paused, turned, and said: “Mr. Knox, I should esteem it a friendly action if you would spare me an hour of your company before you leave Surrey. My visitors are few. Any one, any one, will direct you to the Guest House. I am persuaded that we have much in common. Good-day, sir.”
He went down the steps, disappearing in company with the Chinaman, and having watched them go, I turned to Mrs. Wootton, the landlady, in silent astonishment.
She nodded her head and sighed.
“The same every day and every evening for months past,” she said. “I am afraid it’s going to be the death of him.”
“Do you mean that Mr. Camber comes here every day and is always fetched by the Chinaman?”
“Twice every day,” corrected the landlady, “and his poor wife sends here regularly.”
“What a tragedy,” I muttered, “and such a brilliant man.”
“Ah,” said she, busily removing jugs and glasses from the counter, “it does seem a terrible thing.”
“Has Mr. Camber lived for long in this neighbourhood?” I ventured to inquire.
“It was about three years ago, sir, that he took the old Guest House at Mid-Hatton. I remember the time well enough because of all the trouble there was about him bringing a Chinaman down here.”
“I can imagine it must have created something of a sensation,” I murmured. “Is the Guest House a large property?”
“Oh, no, sir, only ten rooms and a garden, and it had been vacant for a long time. It belongs to what is called the Crayland Park Estate.”
“Mr. Camber, I take it, is a literary man?”
“So I believe, sir.”
Mrs. Wootton, having cleared the counter, glanced up at the clock and then at me with a cheery but significant smile.
“I see that it is after time,” I said, returning the smile, “but the queer people who seem to live hereabouts interest me very much.”
“I can’t wonder at that, sir!” said the landlady, laughing outright. “Chinamen and Spanish men and what-not. If some of the old gentry that lived here before the war could see it, they wouldn’t recognize the place, of that I am sure.”
“Ah, well,” said I, pausing at the step, “I shall hope to see more of Mr. Camber, and of yourself too, madam, for your ale is excellent.”
“Thank you, sir, I’m sure,” said the landlady much gratified, “but as to Mr. Camber, I really doubt if he would know you if you met him again. Not if he was sober, I mean.”
“Really?”
“Oh, it’s a fact, believe me. Just in the last six months or so he has started on the rampage like, but some of the people he has met in here and asked to call upon him have done it, thinking he meant it.”
“And they have not been well received?” said I, lingering.
“They have had the door shut in their faces!” declared Mrs. Wootton with a certain indignation. “He either does not remember what he says or does when he is in drink, or he pretends he doesn’t. Oh, dear, it’s a funny world. Well, good-day, sir.”
“Good-day,” said I, and came out of the Lavender Arms full of sympathy with the views of the “old gentry,” as outlined by Mrs. Wootton; for certainly it would seem that this quiet spot in the Surrey Hills had become a rallying ground for peculiar people.
CHAPTER VIII. THE CALL OF M’KOMBO
Of tea upon the veranda of Cray’s Folly that afternoon I retain several notable memories. I got into closer touch with my host and hostess, without achieving anything like a proper understanding of either of them, and I procured a new viewpoint of Miss Val Beverley. Her repose was misleading. She deliberately subjugated her own vital personality to that of Madame de Stämer, why, I knew not, unless she felt herself under an obligation to do so. That her blue-gray eyes could be wistful was true enough, they could also be gay; and once I detected in them a look of sadness which dispelled the butterfly illusion belonging to her dainty slenderness, to her mobile lips, to the vagabond curling hair of russet brown.
Paul Harley’s manner remained absent, but I who knew his moods so well recognized that this abstraction was no longer real. It was a pose which he often adopted when in reality he was keenly interested in his surroundings. It baffled me, however, as effectively as it baffled others, and whilst at one moment I decided that he was studying Colonel Menendez, in the next I became convinced that Madame de Stämer was the subject upon his mental dissecting table.
That he should find in Madame a fascinating problem did not surprise me. She must have afforded tempting study for any psychologist. I could not fathom the nature of the kinship existing between herself and the Spanish colonel, for Madame de Stämer was French to her fingertips. Her expressions, her gestures, her whole outlook on life proclaimed the fashionable Parisienne.
She possessed a vigorous masculine intelligence and was the most entertaining companion imaginable. She was daringly outspoken, and it was hard to believe that her gaiety was forced. Yet, as the afternoon wore on, I became more and more convinced that such was the case.
I thought that before affliction visited her Madame de Stämer must have been a vivacious and a beautiful woman. Her vivacity remained and much of her beauty, so that it was difficult to believe her snow-white hair to be a product of nature. Again and again I found myself regarding it as a powdered coiffure of the Pompadour period and wondering why Madame wore no patches.
That a deep and sympathetic understanding existed between herself and Colonel Menendez was unmistakable. More than once I intercepted glances from the dark eyes of Madame which were lover-like, yet laden with a profound sorrow. She was playing a rôle, and I was convinced that Harley knew this. It was not merely a courageous fight against affliction on the part of a woman of the world, versed in masking her real self from the prying eyes of society, it was a studied performance prompted by some deeper motive.
She dressed with exquisite taste, and to see her seated there a
mid her cushions, gesticulating vivaciously, one would never have supposed that she was crippled. My admiration for her momentarily increased, the more so since I could see that she was sincerely fond of Val Beverley, whose every movement she followed with looks of almost motherly affection. This was all the more strange as Madame de Stämer whose age, I supposed, lay somewhere on the sunny side of forty, was of a type which expects, and wins, admiration, long after the average woman has ceased to be attractive.
One endowed with such a temperament is as a rule unreasonably jealous of youth and good looks in another. I could not determine if Madame’s attitude were to be ascribed to complacent self-satisfaction or to a nobler motive. It sufficed for me that she took an unfeigned joy in the youthful sweetness of her companion.
“Val, dear,” she said, presently, addressing the girl, “you should make those sleeves shorter, my dear.”
She had a rapid way of speaking, and possessed a slightly husky but fascinatingly vibrant voice.
“Your arms are very pretty. You should not hide them.”
Val Beverley blushed, and laughed to conceal her embarrassment.
“Oh, my dear,” exclaimed Madame, “why be ashamed of arms? All women have arms, but some do well to hide them.”
“Quite right, Marie,” agreed the Colonel, his thin voice affording an odd contrast to the deeper tones of his cousin. “But it is the scraggy ones who seem to delight in displaying their angles.”
“The English, yes,” Madame admitted, “but the French, no. They are too clever, Juan.”
“Frenchwomen think too much about their looks,” said Val Beverley, quietly. “Oh, you know they do, Madame. They would rather die than be without admiration.”
Madame shrugged her shoulders.
“So would I, my dear,” she confessed, “although I cannot walk. Without admiration there is” — she snapped her fingers— “nothing. And who would notice a linnet when a bird of paradise was about, however sweet her voice? Tell me that, my dear?”